Distributed file system logging

ABSTRACT

A method for consolidating data logged in log files in a network of servers, each server running at least one application that logs data into files on the server, the method comprising: 
     providing a consolidating message queue for receiving the log data and file name; 
     intercepting log data being written into a log file by a file system and sending that log data and the file name of the log file to a consolidating message queue; 
     receiving the log data and file name in a consolidating message queue; and saving the log data in the consolidating message queue from all the servers to a consolidated file or data structure associated with the file name.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to commonly assigned and co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/839,600 (Attorney Docket No. GB920090011US1) entitled “DISTRIBUTED FILE SYSTEM LOGGING” filed on Jul. 20, 2010, and hereby incorporated by reference. This application claims benefit of priority of Foreign Patent Application No. GB 09167985.2, filed in the United Kingdom on Aug. 17, 2009, which is herein incorporated by reference.

BACKGROUND

This invention relates to a distributed file system logging method. In particular this invention relates to a distributed file system logging method that intercepts file system writes to log files.

In a mass virtual hosting Web cluster, a Web application can run as many instances on many Web Servers or virtual Web Servers in the Web cluster. Each instance of a Web application will write status data to at least one log file resulting in many log files in many places and a complicated developer review. The number of log files can easily become too large for quick review and some consolidation is required. Several solutions have been proposed to consolidate the log files.

U.S. Pat. No. 7,356,590, filed by the Visible Measures Corporation, discloses a distributed capture and aggregation of dynamic application usage information that uses an application tracking method to access and view aggregated log files. The application tracking method sits in an application layer and listens for events and forwards the events to an aggregated log file.

U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0087949, filed by Golender, V, et al, discloses a system and method for software diagnostics using a combination of visual and dynamic tracing and comprises information gathering modules. Each information gathering module gathers user input and output and consolidates such input and output for diagnostics.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,298,386, filed by the EMC Corporation, discloses a network file server having a message collector queue for connection and connectionless oriented protocols. Connection messages are intercepted and collected in the collector queue.

All of the above solutions rely on changes to be made to the application running on the server so when a new application is loaded then changes must be made.

Another known method of consolidating the log files is to perform batch merging of the log files when the web application is idle. However, due to the interactive nature of developing/debugging web applications and following log files, developers need near real time access to the log files. If the Web application is not idle for long periods then batch merging is always out of date.

In normally secure applications, developers are not allowed interactive access to the web servers. Furthermore, if the Web cluster had a load balancing mechanism then it would be difficult to find which Web server a particular debugging session had used.

Network solutions where the log file is saved remotely in a consolidated network place tend to be unreliable and are not preferred since log files are required for audit purposes.

Applications that solve this problem by logging to a database need to understand the large number of tables and database connections that would be needed in a mass virtual hosting application such as this prevent this approach.

It is also possible for Web servers to pipe access logs into processes but this is not the case for error logs.

U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/025373, filed by the EMC Corporation, discloses backing up selected files of a computer system by using a mirroring driver attached to file system driver to create back-up copies of data files concurrently with changes to data files. However, this disclosure does not address the problem of consolidating data logs.

BRIEF SUMMARY

According to one aspect of the invention there is provided a distributed file system logging method.

By combining guaranteed once-and-only once messaging, a chosen file system, and a simple daemon, logs are written to a flat file (as far as the web server can see) with no special logging configured. Under the covers, the file system is actually intercepting the low level file operations and placing complete log file lines onto a queue. The queue is a remote definition of a queue on another server. This queue is then read by a remote logging server, which places the log lines from all the other servers into the appropriate files.

Preferably, only entire log lines are sent to the message queue. By sending only entire lines, logs are not susceptible to interleaving as may happen with naive network implementations.

More preferably a local message queue is used in each Web server and a consolidating message queue consolidates all the messages.

Any service from any number of machines can now receive aggregate logs with no code changes or other modifications. Should the remote logging server be down or not running, log lines are not lost.

There is a single additional process on each machine regardless of the number of applications/virtual hosts that use this logging solution.

For the most part log lines will arrive in chronological order at the remote end but for absolute chronological order a timestamp on message in the queue would serialize them in the appropriate order.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by means of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic of a distributed file system logging system according to the present embodiment; and

FIG. 2 is a schematic of a distributed file system logging method of the preferred embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows the preferred embodiment in a cluster of Web servers. The preferred embodiment is consolidating system 100 that consolidates log files on more than one server 102A and 102B, in a network. Each server 102A and 102B, runs at least one application 104AA, 104AB, 104BA, or 104BB that logs data into a log file 106AA, 106AB, 106BA, or 106BB on that server. The servers 102A and 102B are also comprised of a file system interceptor 108A and 108B, and a local message queue 110A and 110B. Consolidating system 100 may also contain a consolidating message queue 112, logging daemon 114, and consolidating log file 116.

Each file system interceptor 108A, 108B is an interceptor of file system write operations located on each server and configured so that when log data is written into a log file then that log data, the file name of the log file and the server name is sent to the local message queue and subsequently to the consolidating message queue. In the preferred embodiment a timestamp is additionally sent to the message queue and whereby the merged view can sort the log data in absolute chronological order although for general purposes the log data would be received in roughly the correct chronological order.

In this embodiment the file system interceptor is part of a virtual file system implemented in Linux using a loadable kernel module; the loadable kernel module allows non-privileged users to create their own file systems without editing the kernel code. One particularly useful kernel module is called Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE), however, an interceptor could be implemented in any kernel module or any file system for any operating system. When starting the virtual file system, it is necessary to make sure the consolidating message queue and the address of the message queue is identified so that the interceptor can be configured to send messages to the consolidating message queue at the message queue address. This configuration step need only be taken once so that the virtual file system component is mounted in the standard manner on each Web server.

The Web servers are configured to write their log files into a directory within this mount point. After configuration, the interceptor intercepts the minimal number of system calls needed to fool Web applications writing to the file system that the file system is responding as expected. File system read operations are not required in a logging scenario, so the interceptor needs to act as write only. By default, the file system is empty, however, over the course of time it will acknowledge the existence of files that have been written to during its lifetime, to aid system administration as much as anything. It makes no attempt to resemble the state of the files on the remote end, as this functionality is not needed for a logging solution. Each write call is scanned for complete lines. Once a complete logging line is found (or the file is closed), the file system puts a message onto the local message queue, consisting of the file name, server name and the log file entry. The message is then sent over the network to the address of the consolidating message queue and the logging daemon.

Each local message queue system 110A, 110B, is used in a preferred embodiment for greater reliability but a single message queue at the consolidating end would work effectively in normal operating conditions. The local message queue ensures that a message will be sent and that the data logging is completed in a very secure and reliable manner.

The consolidating message queue 112 is for receiving the log data, file name, server name and time stamp from the Web servers in the network. An example of one message queue is IBM WebSphere MQ; another example of a message queue is the Java Messaging Service. IBM, MQ, and WebSphere are registered trademarks of International Business Machines in the United States and/or other countries. Java is a trademark of Sun Microsystems in the United States and/or other countries.

The logging daemon 114 saves the log data, file name and server name in consolidating log file 116 and provides a merged view of the log data, file name, and server name from the saved log data, file name, and server name. In the preferred embodiment the merged view is provided in real time while server is running the at least one application. The logging daemon can run on the same platform as the message queue. The daemon listens for messages, receives the logging data, and writes (creating files if necessary) the log entry into a file of the file name given in the message. The logging daemon then flushes the file to disk. No special consideration is given to security in this instance, though through appropriate use of firewalls, network encryption, authentication etc. sensitive information can be protected and considered genuine.

The method of the preferred embodiment is described with reference to FIG. 2. In the network of servers, each server runs at least one application that logs data into files on the server, the method of consolidating the data logged into the log files on the server comprising: intercepting file system commands writing log data to a log file (step 202); receiving the log data and file name at a local message queue (step 204); receiving the log data and file name at the consolidating message queue (step 206); saving, by the logging daemon, the log data to a consolidated file associated with file name (step 208); and providing a merged view of the logging data grouped by server (step 210).

In step 202, log data written into a log file (the log data, the file name of the log file and the server name) is intercepted and sent to a local message queue on the Web server. In another embodiment a timestamp is additionally sent to the local message queue.

In step 204, the log data, file name and server name is received in the local message queue from the interceptor, and subsequently sent to the consolidating message queue.

In step 206, the log data, file name and server name is received in the consolidated queue from multiple Web applications running on multiple Web servers.

In step 208, the log data, file name and server name is saved by the logging daemon. Each separate log data is saved in the same order so that a sequential list of all consolidated log data is built up in the consolidated log file.

In step 210, a merged view of the log data, file name, and server name is provided from the saved log data, file name, and server name. In the preferred embodiment the merged view is provided in real time while server is running the at least one application. In the timestamp embodiment, the merged view can sort the log data in absolute chronological order.

Other Embodiments

It will be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art that all or part of the method of the preferred embodiments of the present invention may suitably and usefully be embodied in a logic apparatus, or a plurality of logic apparatus, comprising logic elements arranged to perform the steps of the method, and that such logic elements may comprise hardware components, firmware components, or a combination thereof.

It will be equally clear to one of skill in the art that all or part of a logic arrangement according to the preferred embodiments of the present invention may suitably be embodied in a logic apparatus comprising logic elements to perform the steps of the method, and that such logic elements may comprise components such as logic gates in, for example a programmable logic array or application-specific integrated circuit. Such a logic arrangement may further be embodied in enabling elements for temporarily or permanently establishing logic structures in such an array or circuit using, for example, a virtual hardware descriptor language, which may be stored and transmitted using fixed or transmittable carrier media.

It will be appreciated that the method and arrangement described above may also suitably be carried out fully or partially in software running on one or more processors (not shown in the figures), and that the software may be provided in the form of one or more computer program elements carried on any suitable data-carrier (also not shown in the figures) such as a magnetic or optical disk or the like. Channels for the transmission of data may likewise comprise storage media of all descriptions as well as signal-carrying media, such as wired or wireless signal-carrying media.

The present invention may further suitably be embodied as a computer program product for use with a computer system. Such an implementation may comprise a series of computer-readable instructions either fixed on a tangible medium, such as a computer readable medium, for example, diskette, CD-ROM, ROM, or hard disk, or transmittable to a computer system, using a modem or other interface device, over either a tangible medium, including but not limited to optical or analogue communications lines, or intangibly using wireless techniques, including but not limited to microwave, infrared or other transmission techniques. The series of computer readable instructions embodies all or part of the functionality previously described herein.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that such computer readable instructions can be written in a number of programming languages for use with many computer architectures or operating systems. Further, such instructions may be stored using any memory technology, present or future, including but not limited to, semiconductor, magnetic, or optical, or transmitted using any communications technology, present or future, including but not limited to optical, infrared, or microwave. It is contemplated that such a computer program product may be distributed as a removable medium with accompanying printed or electronic documentation, for example, shrink-wrapped software, pre-loaded with a computer system, for example, on a system ROM or fixed disk, or distributed from a server or electronic bulletin board over a network, for example, the Internet or World Wide Web.

In an alternative, the preferred embodiment of the present invention may be realized in the form of a computer implemented method of deploying a service comprising steps of deploying computer program code operable to, when deployed into a computer infrastructure and executed thereon, cause the computer system to perform all the steps of the method.

In a further alternative, the preferred embodiment of the present invention may be realized in the form of a data carrier having functional data thereon, the functional data comprising functional computer data structures to, when loaded into a computer system and operated upon thereby, enable the computer system to perform all the steps of the method. It will be clear to one skilled in the art that many improvements and modifications can be made to the foregoing exemplary embodiment without departing from the scope of the present invention. 

1. A method of consolidating log files comprising: intercepting log data being written into a log file by a file system and sending the log data and a file name of the log file to a consolidating message queue; receiving the log data and the file name of the log file in the consolidating message queue; and saving the log data to a consolidated file associated with the file name of the log file.
 2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising: sending a server name with the log data; saving the server name with the log data; and providing a merged view of the log data with the server name.
 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein a timestamp is sent to the message queue sorted in absolute chronological order to form saved log data.
 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein consolidated log data is provided in real time while a server is running at least one application.
 5. The method according to claim 2, further comprising: sending a timestamp to the message queue; and responsive to saving the log data to a consolidated file, sorting the saved log data in absolute chronological order.
 6. The method according to claim 2, wherein the consolidated log data is provided in real time while the server is running at least one application. 